Editing Samaritan Pentateuch (section)

==Origin and canonical significance==
===Samaritan traditions===
[[File:Shomroni tora2.jpg|thumb|left|[[Samaritans|Samaritan]] and the Samaritan Torah|upright=1]]
[[File:Samaritan's niche from a house in Damascus, Syria. 15th-16th century CE. Islamic Art Museum (Museum für Islamische Kunst), Berlin.jpg|thumb|right|Quotations from the Torah in Samaritan script. Niche from a Samaritan's house in [[Damascus]], [[Syria]] (15th–16th century CE). [[Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin|Islamic Art Museum, Berlin]].]]

Samaritans believe that God authored their [[Pentateuch]] and gave [[Moses]] the first copy along with the [[Tablets of Stone|two tablets]] containing the [[Ten Commandments]].<ref name= "Gaster">Gaster, T.H. "Samaritans," pp. 190–97 in ''Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 4''. George Arthur Buttrick, gen. ed. Nashville: Abingdon, 1962.</ref> They believe that they preserve this divinely composed text uncorrupted to the present day. Samaritans commonly refer to their Pentateuch as {{lang|smp|{{script|Samr|ࠒࠅࠔࠈࠄ}}}} ({{transliteration|smp|Qušṭā}}, 'Truth').<ref name = "Gaster"/><ref>{{cite web |title=The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon |url= https://cal.huc.edu/oneentry.php?lemma=q%24w%2B+N&cits=all |publisher = HUC}}</ref>

Samaritans include only the Pentateuch in their biblical canon.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=SBMXnB4CRpUC&pg=PA91 Vanderkam] 2002, p. 91.</ref> They do not recognize [[Authorship of the Bible#Divine authorship|divine authorship]] or [[Biblical inspiration|inspiration]] in any other book in the Jewish [[Tanakh]].<ref>Although a paucity of extant source material makes it impossible to be certain that the earliest Samaritans also rejected the other books of the Tanakh, the third-century church father [[Origen]] confirms that the Samaritans in his day "receive[d] the books of Moses alone." ([http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.vi.ix.i.l.html Commentary on John] 13:26)</ref> A [[Book of Joshua (Samaritan)|Samaritan Book of Joshua]] partly based upon the Tanakh's [[Book of Joshua]] exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Gaster |first=M. |title=A Samaritan Book of Joshua |journal=The Living Age
|volume=258 |year=1908 |page=166
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=eUCRAfZvwRgC&pg=PA166}}</ref>

According to a view based on the biblical [[Book of Ezra]] (Ezra 4:11),<ref>({{bibleverse|Ezra|4:11|HE}}</ref> the Samaritans are the people of [[Samaria]] who parted ways with the people of [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]] (the Judahites) in the [[Yehud Medinata|Persian period]].<ref name="Tov 2001, pp. 82–83">[https://books.google.com/books?id=U1UfMyO-RiEC&pg=PA82] Tov 2001, pp. 82–83.</ref> The Samaritans believe that it was not them, but the Jews, who separated from the authentic stream of the [[Israelites|Israelite]] tradition and law, around the time of [[Eli (biblical figure)|Eli]], in the 11th century BCE.

===Scholarly perspective===
Modern scholarship connects the formation of the Samaritan community with events which followed the [[Babylonian captivity]]. One view is that the Samaritans are the people of the [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|Kingdom of Israel]] who separated from the [[Kingdom of Judah]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=U1UfMyO-RiEC&pg=PA83 Tov 2001, p. 82]</ref> Another view is that the event happened somewhere around 432 BCE, when Manasseh, the son-in-law of [[Sanballat the Horonite]], founded a community in Samaria, as related in the [[Book of Nehemiah]] 13:28 and ''[[Antiquities of the Jews]]'' by [[Josephus]].<ref>''Antiquities'' XI.7.2; 8.2.</ref> Josephus, however, dates this event and the [[Yahwism|building of the temple]] at [[Shechem]] to the time of [[Alexander the Great]]. Others believe that the real schism between the peoples did not take place until [[Hasmonean dynasty|Hasmonean]] times, when the Temple on [[Mount Gerizim]] was destroyed in 128 BCE by [[John Hyrcanus]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=U1UfMyO-RiEC&pg=PA83 Tov 2001], p. 83.</ref>

The script of the Samaritan Pentateuch, its close connections at many points with the [[Septuagint]], and its even closer agreements with the present [[Masoretic Text]], all suggest a date about 122 BCE.<ref name="Buttrick52-35">Buttrick 1952, p. 35.</ref> Excavation work undertaken since 1982 by [[Yitzhak Magen]] has firmly dated the temple structures on Gerizim to the middle of the 5th century BCE, built by Sanballat the Horonite, a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, who lived more than 100 years before the Sanballat mentioned by Josephus.<ref>Magen, Y. ''[http://www.antiquities.org.il/Article_eng.aspx?sec_id=36&subj_id=286&id=472 The Temple on Mount Gerizim]''. Israeli Antiquities Authority.</ref>

The adoption of the Pentateuch as the sacred text of the Samaritans before their final schism with the Judean Jewish community provides evidence that it was already widely accepted as a canonical authority in that region.<ref name = "Buttrick52-35" />